where the two cultures meet

Circular Arguments

For more than 150 years, graphics have helped us understand the meaning of the things we measure, and sometimes, the images are circular. Beautiful Science is an exhibition at the British Library until 26th May shows old and new graphical representations of data from nature. J. Snow and W. Farr plotted temperature and cholera deaths through the year of 1852 (below left). During the Crimean War 0f 1853-6. The campaigning nurse, F. Nightingale, compared deaths from preventable epidemics (blue on the diagram blow) with those from actual battle (red).

Specially for the exhibition, artist Martin Krzywinski gives a colourful representation of genetical features, comparing the human genome with those of other animals (opossum, below left). Other representations of genome databases are more complex and colourful. General feelings about the weather have been summarised from social media and compared in the diagram below left with data from actual weather records.